Good morning. Andy Burnham delivered his speech to the United Nations in what felt like the middle of the night in UK time and he announced that he is setting up what he is calling a National Centre for Information Defence.
Burnham said this was necessary because “over the last decade we have given too much ground to those who want to run a negative, corrosive narrative about life in Britain, which bears no resemblance to reality”.
Over at GB News they seem a bit worried this morning about the prospect of a crackdown on corrosive narratives about Britain which bear no resemblance to reality, and it is running a story with a headline referencing “free speech fears” and a quote from a rightwing commentator claiming the Burnham speech was all “talk of control and censorship – exactly the kind of messaging that the Trump administration absolutely hates”.
But close reading of the speech makes it clear that Burnham is not aiming his fire at any parts of the UK media. Burnham said he was concerned about hostile state actors waging disinformation warfare, especially Russia. He told the UN:
In recent years we have seen an industrial-scale assault by hostile actors on the information environment in the UK and that of many of our allies.
Russian agencies have used every means at their disposal to spread lies and disinformation and prey on people’s fears.
They’ve used bots and fake websites.
Falsified newspaper articles.
Forged the branding of 28 British organisations – including universities and the BBC.
They’ve amplified far-right narratives.
And we have evidence that they tried to interfere with the 2019 general election.
(Burnham did not address the fact that there are some within the Trump administration who have also been amplifying far-right narratives with claims about the UK which certainly count as misinformation, and arguably meet the disinformation threshold too.)
Wes Streeting, the defence secretary, has been giving interviews this morning and, speaking to GB News, he was asked about claims that Burnham’s new unit could be used against Britons who” simply disagree” with the government. That would not happen, he said.
He told the programme:
One of the great things about Britain, and one of the things that I have a responsibility to defend, is the freedom and democracy that we all enjoy.
And that includes the freedom to disagree, the freedom for people to challenge their government, to challenge government policy, to criticise robustly what we are doing and then to have the opportunity to choose a different government.
That is a stark contrast to the position that our friends the Russian people endure under the political system that they suffer under.
Russia is just one of a number of malign state and non-state actors that seek to threaten and disrupt our democracy, including through misinformation and disinformation.
Streeting added:
We’re not interested in policing domestic political dissent.
You can read Burnham’s UN speech in full here. I will be posting more from it soon.
The Commons is still in recess, and most people in government are getting ready for the Labour conference next week, and so there is almost nothing in the Westminster diary. But there was enough news at the UN yesterday to pad out the week, and so I’m sure there will be enough to cover.
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